this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2026
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The image from 1987 shows an exhausted but vigilant Dr. Religa monitoring his patient's vital signs after a grueling 23 hour heart transplant surgery, while one of his assistants, can be seen asleep… (lemmy.today)
submitted 20 hours ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/interestingasfuck@lemmy.world
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Full title: The image from 1987 shows an exhausted but vigilant Dr. Religa monitoring his patient's vital signs after a grueling 23 hour heart transplant surgery, while one of his assistants, can be seen asleep in the corner of the operating room.

This iconic photo by James Nachtwey captures Polish cardiac surgeon Dr. Zbigniew Religa after performing the country's first successful heart transplant, a 23-hour procedure. The assistant asleep in the corner underscores the immense physical toll on the surgical team.

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[–] Iconoclast@feddit.uk 6 points 12 hours ago

If I remember correctly, this patient outlived the doctor.

[–] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

My double lung transplant in 2014 took ~12 hours, it was the second one my surgeon had done in that “day” I put it in quotes because the first one took longer than mine, he worked for more than 24 hours on the two of us. Thoracic surgeons are beasts

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 8 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

The crazy thing about heart transplants. The very first one lived for decades. The typical lifespan after a heart pine transplant is like Five years of fucking misery. You don’t wanna know the lifespan of having a lung transplant.

[–] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Haha, I read this after leaving my comment about my lung transplant.

Lung transplant is so low because two groups of people get them, very old people with COPD, the 65+ crowd and then people like me, people with cystic fibrosis, and a tiny sprinkle of other reasons. People with CF who live past the acute rejection phase tend to live a decent amount of time in much better health but there’s so many old people who get new lungs then turn around and die immediately because the surgery itself is brutal so the average is abysmal. That said mine was in 2014 and when my doctor was telling me about survival times she said anything after ten years is a “gray area” so that’s where I am now, going fantastic though

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 4 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

I am sure there are a ton of factors involved. I am also sure that there is a lot of financial incentives to publish positive studies.

There is a huge caveat to posting a study to counter your stats above since you technically aren't wrong. "Typically" can mean many different things, but here, it can also fit within published data.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1125407/

Most articles I found usually point to roughly the same numbers as that study, but there is a lot of variation in how those numbers are presented. (Even that study initially presents stats in a way that is confusing: A percentage of a percentage of a percentage, over time.)

My point is that it's one of those stats that is super easy view as "really good" or simultaneously "exceptionally bad". IMHO, I still think it's crazy that we can even do transplants at all.

Edit: I believe everyone should at least get a chance to live a bit longer, but it sucks that it comes at extreme cost. The procedures are extremely expensive and a person could potentially be put on expensive anti-rejection drugs for the remainder of their life. Add in all the follow-up appointments and occasional hiccups in recovery (adding even more cost) a person is likely going to die broke and be put through even more stress that is a very real danger to health anyway.

[–] A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl 1 points 14 hours ago

murrica helthker

[–] Mistiygirl@lemmy.zip 2 points 14 hours ago

that's not really true in most cases. There's plenty of people living long and healthy lives with heart transplants, I even know someone personally, he does high impact rock climbing